Fred MacMurray

After purchasing Louisiana from France, the USA sends surveyors Lewis and Clark, assisted by a Shoshone guide, to chart the new territory. United States has just acquired Louisiana from France. An expedition led by Lewis and Clark is sent to survey the territory and go where no white man has gone before. Are they able to overcome the dangers with the help of Sacajawea? —Timo Lamminjoki <lamminjo@pcu.helsinki.fi>

Callow, rich Ensign Willis Seward "Willie" Keith (Robert Francis) reports for duty aboard the Caine, his first assignment. Homeported in Pearl Harbor, he is disappointed to find the Caine to be a small, battle-scarred destroyer-minesweeper. Its gruff captain, Lieutenant Commander William H. DeVriess (Tom Tully), has almost completely discarded discipline, and the crew has become slovenly and superficially undisciplined - although their performance is excellent. Keith has already met the executive officer, Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (Van Johnson), and is introduced to the communications officer, Lieutenant Thomas Keefer (Fred MacMurray), a novelist in civilian life. Keith has an opportunity to transfer off the ship for a more glamorous command, but decides to stay aboard. However, Keith remains frustrated with the ship's lack of discipline, despite his own shortcomings. The captain is soon replaced by Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queeg (Humphrey Bogart), a no-nonsense career veteran and graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He quickly attempts to re-instill discipline into the crew but soon displays erratic behavior. He regularly clicks a pair of steel ball bearings in his hands. At first, Keith is elated to have a strict commander. The next day, the Caine is assigned to tow a target for gunnery practice. Queeg is distracted berating Keith and Keefer over a crewman's appearance after giving an order to turn, and he cuts off the helmsman's attempt to warn him that they are turning back on their own towline. After the Caine continues in a circle and cuts the towline, Queeg tries to cover up his responsibility for the incident. Other incidents serve to undermine Queeg's authority. When strawberries go missing from the officers' mess, the captain-once again clicking the bearings-goes to absurd lengths to hunt down the culprit. Despite being told by one of his officers that the mess staff had eaten the fruit, Queeg insists on believing otherwise. He relates a story to Maryk and Keefer of when he, as an ensign, was commended for unmasking a cheese thief. Under enemy fire, Queeg abandons escorting a group of landing craft during an amphibious assault long before they reach the fiercely defended shore, instead dropping a yellow dye marker in the water and leaving the landing craft to fend for themselves, much to the crew's disgust. Afterward, Queeg speaks to his officers, not explicitly apologizing, but bending enough to ask for their support. His disgruntled subordinates do not respond. Keefer begins trying to convince Maryk that he should relieve Queeg on the basis of mental illness under Article 184 of Navy Regulations. At first Maryk displays loyalty to Queeg, even threatening Keefer with a charge of insubordination. Maryk begins keeping a journal, documenting Queeg's behavior. Keefer convinces Maryk and Keith to join him in presenting the case to Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.. While aboard Halsey's flagship, Keefer realizes that Queeg's documented actions could be interpreted as reasonable attempts to instill discipline, leaving the officers open to a charge of conspiring to mutiny. When Halsey's aide tells the Caine officers that Halsey will see them, Keefer talks Maryk and Keith out of making the complaint. Matters come to a head during a violent typhoon. Maryk urgently recommends that they steer into the waves and take on ballast, but Queeg refuses to deviate from the fleet-ordered heading and declines Maryk's request for ballast. He fears that it would foul the fuel lines with salt water. When Queeg appears to become paralyzed in action, Maryk relieves him, with Keith's support. Upon returning to port, Maryk and Keith face a court-martial for mutiny. After questioning them and Keefer, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (José Ferrer) reluctantly accepts the job of Maryk's defense counsel, which a number of other lawyers have already turned down. The proceedings do not go well, as Keefer has carefully covered himself and denies any complicity. Navy psychiatrist Dr. Dixon (Whit Bissell) testifies that Queeg is not mentally ill, but when Queeg is called to testify, he exhibits paranoid behavior and begins to click the ball bearings together in his hand under Greenwald's tough cross-examination. Maryk is acquitted, and Keith is spared any charges. The Caine officers celebrate the trial's results at a hotel. Keefer shows up, telling Maryk privately he did not have the guts not to. Greenwald appears and clears his "guilty conscience". Apparently drunk, he berates the officers for not appreciating the years of danger and hardship endured by Queeg, a career navy man. He lambastes Maryk, Keith, and finally Keefer, for not supporting their captain when he most needed it. Under his attack, Maryk and Keith admit that if they had given Queeg the support he had asked for, he might not have "frozen" during the typhoon. Greenwald turns to Keefer, denouncing him as the real "author" of the mutiny, who "hated the Navy" and manipulated the others while keeping his own hands officially clean. The lawyer exposes Keefer's double-dealing to the other officers, throws a glassful of champagne in his face and tells Keefer that if he wishes to do anything about the drink in the face, the two could fight outside. Keefer does not respond to the challenge and the other officers depart, leaving him alone in the room. A few days later, Keith has received his promotion to Lieutenant, junior grade and reports to his new ship. He is surprised to find he is serving again under DeVriess, who has been promoted to Commander. DeVriess lets Keith know that he will start with a clean slate.

In 1883, an American merchant ship's captain is searching for a treasure in diamonds from a sunken Dutch ship in the vicinity of a volcanic island in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch East Indies, at the end of the nineteenth century. An adventurous captain of an American merchant vessel is looking for a sunken Dutch vessel containing 10,000 precious diamonds. Unfortunately, he's not the only one and then there's also that volcano on the nearby island of Krakatau, waiting to explode in its historical, disastrous eruption... —Homme A. Piest <piest@pobox.leidenuniv.nl>

On their wedding night, Bob reveals to Betty that he has purchased an abandoned chicken farm. Betty struggles to adapt to their new rural lifestyle, especially when a glamorous neighbor seems to set her eyes on Bob. On their wedding night Bob informs his new bride Betty that he has bought a chicken farm. An abandoned chicken farm, to be exact, which is obvious when the two move in. Betty endures Bob's enthusiasm for the rural life, rustic inconveniences, and battling nature, but her patience is severely tested when glamorous neighbor Harriet Putnam seems to set her sights on Bob. —Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com> Wanting to start a new life after coming back from the war and getting married, city slicker Bob buys a farmstead with plans primarily to raise chicken to sell the eggs as a business. Buying the farm is something he doesn't tell his equally city slicker bride, Betty, before doing so. In the farm, an eager Bob doesn't see what Betty sees, which is an old, dilapidated property that requires much work to make it livable. While trying to make a go of the farm, Bob and Betty meet their odd assortment of neighbors, including the respectively housework challenged and lazy Ma and Pa Kettle, the oldest of their fifteen children, Tom, a bright and industrious young man, who dreams of going to college; the rhyme-talking Billy Reed, who is willing to sell Betty anything; busybody Birdie Hicks; the relatively silent Geoduck and Corkscrew; elderly Emily and her difficult to see husband Albert; and Harriet Putnam, the elegant owner of the Bella Vista Farm, the largest and most businesslike of the farms in the area. Betty quickly realizes that she is not well suited to rural living. But what Betty is most concerned about regarding her new environment is what seems to be a romantic interest that Harriet shows in Bob. —Huggo

Walter Neff, a successful insurance salesman unwittingly finds himself stuck in insurance fraud scheme, which arouses the suspicion of an insurance investigator.